Mt. Fitzherbert

In the 1980s an environmental group bought roughly 900 acres of land and mining claims at the edge of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and turned it over to the U.S. Forest Service "to preserve the integrity" of a nearby river.

Today, a mining company wants to explore the same land in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest for copper, gold, molybdenum and silver.

The prospect of a new mine in the volcano's forested foothills has riled environmentalists, who are particularly irked because the land was purchased for its own protection. At the same time, the potential for new mining jobs is raising hopes in economically depressed nearby towns.